Django Rest Framework Reverse() Method Fails

Question

My main urls.py is located here ahlami -> ahlami -> urls.py

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('api/accounts/', include('accounts.api.urls')),
]

My accounts app urls.py is located here ahlami -> accounts -> api -> urls.py

urlpatterns = [
    path('users/<int:pk>/', views.UserView.as_view(), name='user-detail')
]

One of my accounts views.py returns

token = Token.objects.create(......)
return Response(data=AnonymousUserTokenResponseSerializer(instance=token).data)

My token model has three fields only. For simplicity, I listed one field below

class Token(rest_framework.authtoken.models.Token):
    user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE

AnonymousUserTokenResponseSerializer is linked to the Token model and returns three json attributes

class AnonymousUserTokenResponseSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    user_id = serializers.ReadOnlyField(source='user.id')
    user_url = reverse(viewname='user-detail')
    class Meta:
        model = Token
        fields = ('key',
                  'user_id',
                  'user_url')

AnonymousUserTokenResponseSerializer fails because it can't identify reverse()

user_url = reverse(viewname='user-detail')

python manage.py runserver throws the error below because of the line above

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: The included URLconf 'ahlami.urls' does not appear to have any patterns in it. If you see valid patterns in the file then the issue is probably caused by a circular import.

My settings is located here ahlami -> ahlami -> settings -> base.py and base.py has this

ROOT_URLCONF = 'ahlami.urls'

I expect to get an output that looks like but couldn't because of the error above.

{
    "key": "891e388399f2fcae016fe6887107034239041478",
    "user_id": 29,
    "user_url": http://localhost/api/accounts/users/29 
}

How can I resolve this error and make reverse() work?

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: The included URLconf 'ahlami.urls' does not appear to have any patterns in it. If you see valid patterns in the file then the issue is probably caused by a circular import.

It doesn't make any sense that you have put user_url in the serializer since it is not a serializer field — JPG
– JPG, Commented Aug 13, 2020 at 18:26
What do you mean? Do you mean user_url is not part Token? user_id is not part of the serializer either. I declared user_id and it worked. — Fahmi Eshaq
– Fahmi Eshaq, Commented Aug 13, 2020 at 18:30
user_id is a DRF Serializer field, but user_url is not — JPG
– JPG, Commented Aug 13, 2020 at 18:32

JPG · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-13 18:40:41Z

1

Use serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField

class AnonymousUserTokenResponseSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    user_id = serializers.ReadOnlyField(source='user.id')
    user_url = serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField(
        view_name='user-detail',
        source='user.id',
        lookup_field='pk'
    )

    class Meta:
        model = Token
        fields = ('key', 'user_id', 'user_url')

answered Aug 13, 2020 at 18:40

JPG

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3 Comments

Fahmi Eshaq Over a year ago

Perfect! It worked. Thanks Arakkal... I had to do few changes. I had to pass context in my serializer's method return Response(data=AnonymousUserTokenResponseSerializer(instance=token, context={'request': request}).data) and I had to change to serializers.HyperlinkedIdentityField to serializers.HyperlinkedRelatedField

user_url = serializers.HyperlinkedRelatedField(         view_name='user-detail',         source='user.id',         lookup_field='pk',         read_only='True'     )

Fahmi Eshaq Over a year ago

Just trying to understand why I had to pass return context={'request': request}. If you have any thoughts, feel free to share it here. Anyway, I'll google it.

JPG Over a year ago

coz, DRF uses the request object internally to build the URL

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